NiGHTS series
NiGHTS is a video games franchise developed by SEGA starring the titular character, NiGHTS, a genderless nightmaren who was created to do evil but decided to rebel against it and now fights to protect the world of dreams from the nightmarens, the series started in 1996 with the release of NiGHTS into dreams for the SEGA Saturn. Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, NiGHTS has managed to become one of SEGA's most popular series, the serie was created by Yuji Naka, who was also the creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, in fact, one of NiGHTS most notable aspects, is the fact it has been referred in a lot Sonic games, such as Sonic Adventure, Sonic Riders and Sonic Lost World. Beside's it's two games, NiGHTS had a cancelled Dreamcast game called Air NiGHTS, a small comic series released in 1998 and a storybook released only in Japan in 1996. Overview History When humans go to sleep, they are transported to the Night Dimension, a magical dimension divided into two types of locations: the world of dreams, known as Nightopia and the world of the nightmarens, know as Nightmare, Wizeman the Wicked is the God of Nightmare and creator of all the nightmarens, he created them with the intention to destroy Nightopia and to steal ideyas from humans (who the Night Dimension residents call "Visitors" or "Dreamers") while they are sleeping, ideyas are colored, crystalline orbs which are human's dream energy and every Visitor possesses five of them, in the NiGHTS' manual, it's stated that once Wizeman steal enough dream energy from humans, he will be able to invade the real world, out of the five ideyas, the red ideya of courage is the most powerful and the nightmarens cannot steal it due to it's power, Wizeman created two nightmarens who are his most powerful creations, NiGHTS and Reala with the intention to steal the red ideyas, but for Wizeman's surprise, while Reala stayed very loyal to him, NiGHTS decided to rebel against him, since then, NiGHTS has been fighting Wizeman and his minions to protect the world of dreams and humans, NiGHTS is assisted by human children who are having a hard time in their lifes, during their adventures, NiGHTS helps and encourages them to face their problems, to defeat the nightmarens, NiGHTS has the power fuse with humans so he can use their red ideya to become more powerful, in the games, this type of fusion is called "dualize". Ideyas Ideyas are colored, crystalline orbs representing dream energy. The Nightmarens steal this energy from Visitors to further their goal of destroying Nightopia and to invading the real world. Each time an Ideya is stolen, Nightopia disappears bit by bit. Ideya represents the Visitor's consciousness in the Night Dimension. Every dreamer possesses five of them, although they are often stolen by Nightmarens on the way to the Night Dimension. The name is a play on the word idea. The ideyas are the white ideya of purity, the yellow ideya of hope, the green ideya of growth, the blue ideya of inteligence and the most powerful one, the red ideya of courage. The ideya of the courage cannot be stolen by the nightmarens due to it's power, because of this, NiGHTS and Reala were created with the intention to steal it, in the Archie Comics, it's revealed that NiGHTS' ruby on his chest is actually a shard of the red ideya which latched on to his chest. Nightmarens Nightmarens are the residents of Nightmare who invade Nightopia and creations of Wizeman, created from his own twisted ideas. They serve the purpose of stealing ideya and destroying Nightopia, they are generally evil and obedient to Wizeman, with the notable exception of NiGHTS. The nightmarens follow a system where they are ranked as first, second or third level nightmarens: * First level Nightmarens are the highest ranking nightmarens and Wizeman's strongest creations, there are only two of them, NiGHTS and Reala, they were created specifically to steal the red ideya. * Second level Nightmarens are all of the bosses from both games with the exception of Reala and Wizeman, they are big and powerful monsters with many different designs and abilities, they have the power to create their own battlefield to fight NiGHTS, second level nightmarens are stronger and more resistent than most of the nightmarens from Nightmare, but they are not stronger than NiGHTS and Reala. * Third level Nightmarens are the enemies who can be found though the levels, they are Wizeman's weakest creations who can be easily defeated by a single attack by NiGHTS and even Visitors can fight and defeat them by themselves. Visitors .]] The "Visitors" (or "Dreamers") are the humans protagonists from the games they are addressed by that name by the Night Dimension residents, so far, the NiGHTS series presented four visitors (five with the Archie Comics), Elliot Edwards and Claris Sinclair in NiGHTS into dreams and William "Will" Taylor and Helen Cartwright in NiGHTS Journey of dreams, all four of them are having a hard time in their lifes, Claris is feeling insecure about the dreams she wants to follow, Elliot is feeling embarassed after being bullied by older kids, Helen is feeling guilty about her behavior towards her mother and William is feeling lonely after his father leaving him due his work, one night during their sleep, they are having nightmares releated to their problems when suddently, monsters appear and start to chase them, they run from the monsters until they see a light which transports them to the Night dimension, where they meet NiGHTS and their journey begins, before every level, NiGHTS gets captured by the nightmarens and he is imprisioned in a cage and the Visitors red ideya are capable of releasing him from the cage for a limited time so NiGHTS can save a Nightopia location one by one, in the Archie comics, Elliot's bully and rival, Roger Wilkeah, is also a visitor, Roger is sent to the nightmare world and he joins forces with Reala to defeat NiGHTS. Nightopians Nightopians are little fairy-like creatures and as their names suggest, they are residents of Nightopia, according to the now, unavalible NiGHTS into dreams official website, they don't have any goal other than live their lifes and have fun in visitor's dream worlds, they can be found in every level from both games but Twin Seeds and Bellbridge, in 1998, the Nightopians were the inspiration for the creation of the Chaos from the Sonic series. Nightopians were Sonic Team's first Announced "Artificial-life" (A-Life), in NiGHTS into Dreams, the game will keep track of the moods of the Nightopians (harming them will displease them, for example), and the game features music engine that changed the background music (BGM) depending on the mood of the Nightopians in that specific level changing tempo, pitch, and melody. When two Nightopians touch, there is a chance that an egg will appear. By paralooping a Nightopian, the player will kill it, and lower the mood of every other Nightopian in the level, and drill dashing near one will cause it to be afraid of the player, and will lower that specific Nightopian's mood. Nightopians will either follow the player, run away from them, or be completely indifferent to their presence, based on their mood. If one is skilled enough, and has the patience, they can lure any two Nightopians close enough, and breed them, another thing that can happen during gameplay is that the nightmaren enemies from the levels may eat the Nightopians at any time. After a few playthroughs of the same level, Nightopians will disappear, with the oldest ones being the first to go, as to make it easier for the hardware to load the level and keep a decent framerate. In NiGHTS journey of dreams, the Nightopians act the same way they did in the previous game, this time however, their mood won't change the level's music, there's also a feature called My Dream also known as "Nightopian Garden", a place where the player can take care of Nightopians in a similar way to the Chao Garden from the Sonic series, when the player paraloops a Nightopian in this game, they won't kill it, but rather transport the Nightopians to My Dream, the player can also transport and take care of Nightmarens and feed them with Nightopians. The games also feature special types of Nightopians called Mepians and a very rare Nightopian called Super/King Pian, these Nightopians will only appear in the levels or in the Nightopian Garden if the player does specific things in the levels. Awakers Awakers are neutral creatures from the Night Dimension who's purpose is to make the Visitors wake up, they appear if the Visitors don't dualize with NiGHTS at the beggining of the levels or if the Visitor unfuse with NiGHTS, when they appear, they will chase the Visitors and if they get them, they will cause a game over screen, which is called Night Over in the games, the only way to make them disappear is by dualizing with NiGHTS, in NiGHTS into dreams, the Awaker is called Alarm Egg, it's a clock inside an eggshell with a light coming from below, when either Claris or Elliot go inside the light, they will wake up, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTbJlfHquM Elliot and Claris however, can defend themselves from it by jumping over the clock which will stop it for a few seconds, in NiGHTS Journey of dreams they are simply called Awakers and they are ghost like creatures who make alarm clock sounds, they pop up in William and Helen's way and if three awakers get William or Helen, they will make them wake up. NiGHTS Gender Debate "Men or women, we all have dreams, so I thought that the residents in the dream world shouldn’t have a gender, rather, the form of the characters should be determined by the person who is dreaming." ―Yuji Naka about the characters gender. .]] The characters gender (specially NiGHTS' gender) is a very infamous detail which has caused a lot of debates among the community, many people question if NiGHTS is actually a boy or a girl while others try to prove NiGHTS actually belongs to a specific gender, however, Yuji Naka himself already confirmed in an interview that every resident from the world of dreams is genderless, including NiGHTS, Reala, Nightopians, Owl and others, http://www.nightsintodreams.com/?p=1343 even characters like Puffy, Bomamba and Queen Bella, who have a very feminine design and go by female pronouns, are actually genderless, even though NiGHTS is genderless, he is referred as a "he" in all types of media and his voice actors are females most likely to make him sound like a child, after all, many young girls and boys in movies, TV series and video games are voiced by women, Wizeman, who is confirmed to be male, is the only exception, he is the only resident from the world of dreams to have a gender likely because it's rumored he was actually a human before getting trapped in the world of dreams and becoming the God of all the nightmarens. is also genderless, despite the fact she has the word "Queen" on her name.]] Sonic Team wanted NiGHTS to appeal to a wide audience and be relatable to everybody regardless of gender, therefore it was made clear that the character has no gender of their own, so it's up to the player to decide how they want to see NiGHTS. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2007/12/interview_takashi_iizuka_talks_nights There's also a popular belief among the community where they believe NiGHTS' gender will change depending on the visitor he dualizes with, if NiGHTS dualizes with a male visitor, NiGHTS will become a boy, if NiGHTS dualizes with a female visitor, NiGHTS will become a girl and when he is not fused, he will become genderless. Inspirations The works and theories of psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud heavily influenced in the game, the development team researched dream sequences and REM sleep, including the works of the psychoanalysts Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Holtz, Jung's theories of dream archetypes and theories associated with them were deeply analysed and were the inspiration for characters and more, NiGHTS is reflective of Jung's analytical Shadow theory, Claris and Elliot were inspired by Jung's animus and anima and the Personas from NiGHTS Journey of dreams were inspired by Jung's Persona, there's also a deleted character who would make an appearance as a boss in NiGHTS into Dreams called Selph, who would be inspired by the Self archetype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_into_Dreams#Development Carl Jung also had interpretations for fishes, cats, spiders and other animals which the nightmarens were based on, however, it's unknown if these were created after his interpretations. For character's designs, the designs and performances from the circus, Cirque du Soleil, were the main inspiration for the nightmarens designs as well as NiGHTS' acrobatics skills. Gameplay styles NiGHTS is known for being a game all about flying, being even nicknamed "Sonic in the air" by IGN, before the levels, the player take control of a visitor who must release NiGHTS from his cage by dualizing with him, once NiGHTS is released, the player takes control of NiGHTS who can fly freely though the levels, collect items, pass though rings and defeat third level nightmarens, NiGHTS has two main attacks, the drill dash, where he starts to spin and fly faster, destroying any nightmaren in the way and the paraloop where he creates a void which will suck anything by making a circle in the air, NiGHTS can also grabs the enemies and drill dash into them or paralooping them, these moves are called touch-dash and touch-loop respectively, he also has the ability to shapeshift which is an ability he uses in certain sections of the levels, for example, in Splash Garden, he will turn into a mermaid during a water cave section and in Frozen Bell he turns into a bobsled during a snow mountain section, in NiGHTS Journey of dreams, NiGHTS has three masks which will make him turn into a mermaid, a rocket or a dragon at any moment during the levels, the masks give NiGHTS special abilities. In NiGHTS into dreams, before the levels, Wizeman imprisons NiGHTS in a magic blue cage called Ideya Palace, the player first controls either Elliot or Claris who are attacked by nightmarens that steal all of their ideyas but the red one and places them inside a blue Jellyfish-like capsule called Ideya Capture, the kids must dualize with NiGHTS and recover the four stolen ideyas in a limited time, each level has four laps, each lap has an ideya to recover, NiGHTS must collect 20 blue chips around the lap under 120 seconds and then go inside the Ideya Capture, the Ideya capture will break and NiGHTS will get the ideya back, after doing this, the player must bring the ideya to the ideya palace, but before doing that if they want to, the player can spend the rest of the remaining time to get a high score, once all four ideyas are recovered, Wizeman will send a boss to fight NiGHTS, if the player defeats the boss quickly, they will be able to double their score. In NiGHTS Journey of dreams, the game's goal is a bit different, once again, before every level, Reala will imprision NiGHTS in a golden aquarium-like cage called NiGHTS Capture and then leave, to destroy the cages, it's necessary to collect it's keys which Reala will leave with three Goodles, grinning imp-like Nightmarens that ride colorful peacock-like bird nightmares, each Goodle will keep a capsule key, once again, the player must make one of the visitors, this time either William or Helen, dualize with NiGHTS to release him, then, they will have a limited time to chase each Goodles in a lap and bring the key to the capsule back so it can be destroyed, unlike in the first game, once the player completes the lap's goal, which in this case, is to catch the Goodle, they won't be able to spent the remaining time they have to make their score higher, once they bring the key back, the capsule will break and NiGHTS will go to the next lap, once all three laps are completed, Wizeman will send a boss to fight NiGHTS, if the player defeats the boss quickly, they will be able to double their score. Common features Besides it's gameplay about flying, the NiGHTS series is known for it's Arcade like gameplay, the player control NiGHTS freely though the sky with the goal to make high score, NiGHTS can passes though rings, collect blue chips and destroy third level nightmarens if the player collects a lot of blue chips and/or pass though a lot of rings fast enough, they will make links, which will make their score higher, at the end of the levels, NiGHTS must face a boss, if he defeats them fast enough, the player might double their scores. Clock Features List of the Clock Features The NiGHTS games are connected with the console's internal clock and they have special features and easter eggs such as special costumes and backgrounds that will only appear during specific days. Items and Collectables * Persona Masks * Blue Chips * Rings * Stars * Dash Ball * Bonus Ball * Power Panels * Switch * Cages/Treasure Chests * Time Chip Characters * NiGHTS: the main protagonist from the games, NiGHTS was created to be one of Wizeman's strongest nightmaren and to destroy the world of dreams and steal human's dream energy to his master, but he rebelled against his own creator because he didn't want to do evil, NiGHTS protects the world of dreams from the nightmarens with the help of kids who possese the powerful dream energy known as the ideya of courage. * Reala: the serie's secondary antagonist, both him and NiGHTS were created to be Wizeman's strongest Nightmarens, unlike NiGHTS, who decided to rebel, Reala is completely loyal to his creator and he does everything Wizeman wants, in the first game he simply makes an appearance as the boss from Stick Canyon, he has more presence in the second game, where he plays with the Visitors minds and contantly goes after NiGHTS and imprisions him. * Wizeman the Wicked: the series main antagonist, he is the god and creator of all the nightmarens including NiGHTS and Reala, his goal is to destroy the world of dreams and to steal enough human dream energy, so he will be able to come to the real world and take over it, while Wizeman's past is never mentioned in the games, there are rumours that he was a human without ideyas, it's unknown how he got trapped in the Night Dimension though. * Visitors (also known as "Dreamers"): In every NiGHTS game, NiGHTS is assited by visitors, human children who are struggling in their lifes and went to the Night Dimension during their sleep, when the nightmarens imprision NiGHTS, the visitors use their ideyas to release NiGHTS from the cage, they dualize (fuse) with NiGHTS to become a single being and to NiGHTS use their ideyas to become more powerful, in the first game, the Visitors are Elliot Edwards and Claris Sinclair, in the second, they are William "Will" Taylor and Helen Cartwright. * Awakers: In both games, if the Visitors don't dualize with NiGHTS quickly, they will be chased by awakers, who are gonna make them wake up if they get the Visitors, causing a game over, in the first game, the Awaker is a clock inside an eggshell called Alarm Egg in the second game they are just called Awakers and they ghost-like creatures who do alarm clock noises, they are neutral creatures. Cancelled games * Air NiGHTS: Air NiGHTS is a game that would have gameplay revolved around using a tilt sensor in the Saturn analog pad, similar to what NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams did with the Wii remote. The Development started on the Saturn, and eventually moved to the Dreamcast. The project was cancelled, and the technology used for the control scheme was used as a prototype for the motion-sensing technology in Samba De Amigo for the Dreamcast. * NiGHTS - Twilight Adventure: There were rumors that if NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams had sold well enough, the game would either get ported to the Xbox360 and Ps3 or that a new game would be released for the later consoles called NiGHTS - Twilight Adventure, the game would feature new persona masks called "Cloud", "Eagle" and "Magnet", however, the rumor came from the beggining of the game's development and more news about it never came, meaning the rumor was either false or that the idea was disconsidered. http://www.nightsintodreams.com/NiD/violet/journey/ofdreams.htm Other medias NiGHTS has other types of media besides games. NiGHTS: Flying Through the Sky Without Wings A mini NiGHTS storybook called NiGHTS: Flying Through the Sky Without Wings was released exclusivly in Japan in 1996, the story tells a small adventure about NiGHTS and Elliot trying to stop the nightmarens from taking over Nightopia. NiGHTS Archie Comics In 1998 Archie Comics released a total of six NiGHTS comics, while the first three did pretty well, the last three didn't, causing the Archies to be discontinued. Cameos and References in games and other medias Full list of NiGHTS' appearances, cameos and references Even with only two games, the NiGHTS series is referred in a lot of SEGA games, the most notable cameos being in many Sonic games, NiGHTS was also referred in other types of media, such as in the Nickelodeon's Animated TV series, Danny Phantom. Reception Since its release, NiGHTS into Dreams has appeared on several best-game-of-all-time lists. In a January 2000 poll by Computer and Video Games, readers placed the game 15th on their "100 Greatest Games" list, directly behind Super Mario 64. IGN ranked the game as the 94th best game of all time in their "Top 100 Games" list in 2007, and in 2008, Levi Buchanan ranked it fourth in his list of the top 10 Sega Saturn games. Next Generation ranked the game 25th in its list of the "100 Greatest Games of All Time" in their September 1996 issue (i.e. one month before they actually reviewed the game, and roughly two months before it saw release outside Japan). 1UP ranked the game third in its "Top Ten Cult Classics" list. In 2014, GamesRadar listed Nights into Dreams as the best Sega Saturn game of all time, stating that the game "tapped into a new kind of platform gameplay for its era". Cult Following Even though the series only has two games and a bonus edition, the NiGHTS series has one of the largest cult followings out of all the SEGA franchises, and even SEGA, Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka and Naoto Oshima acknowledge that, Lynne Triplett, a famous artist and NiGHTS fan among the NiGHTS community was responsable for creating NiGHTSintodreams.com, a NiGHTS fan site dedicated to NiGHTS' news, facts, fanarts, fan comics and more, Lynne and her boyfriend, Digi Valentine, also met and interviewed the serie's creators and developers, revealing fun facts about the game's development. In 2010, the NiGHTS community started a campaign to make NiGHTS a playable character in Sonic and SEGA All-Star Racing (a racing game featuring a lot of SEGA characters such as Sonic, AiAi, Virtua Fighter characters and more) once it was revealed he wouldn't be playable character in the game, the campaign was strong enough to reach SUMO Digital Studios and Steve Lycett answered the campaign saying they would be considering to make NiGHTS a DLC, unfortunatly though, NiGHTS didn't make in the game as a DLC, however due to the campain, both NiGHTS and Reala became playable characters in the sequel, Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed in 2012. In 2011, to celebrate the game's 15th anniversary, OverClocked ReMix (OC Remix), a community which makes video game music with composers from all over the world, made a fan album for NiGHTS into dreams, called NiGHTS Lucid Dreaming http://lucid.ocremix.org/ and Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka themselves were gifted with a copy of the discs. Trivia * During an Interview, Yuji Naka mentioned that Steven Spilberg, a famous movie director known for movies such as Jaws, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Schindler’s list, Jurassic Park and Ready Player One and also one of the co-founders of Dreamworks Studios visited SEGA during the development of NiGHTS into dreams... and he was the first person outside of the SEGA team to play NiGHTS into dreams, he was also the first person to play with the new controller, which since then, became known as the Spilberg Controller. ** Coincidently or not, Elliot shares his name with the human protagonist from E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. * Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda revealed himself to be a fan of the NiGHTS' series, in an interview back in the Dreamcast times, Yuji Naka once said that many fans including Miyamoto himself were curious to know if a new NiGHTS game was in development for the system. http://info.sonicretro.org/Yuji_Naka_interview_by_Official_Dreamcast_Magazine_(September_1999) ** Additionally, there's also a famous Miyamoto quote known among the NiGHTS community, where he says "If there is a game I would have loved to work on, it would be Nights into Dreams… https://sixtyhertz.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/nights-vid-wii/ * In NiGHTS into dreams, the characters speak in a ficctional language called Dream Language, when NiGHTS unfuses with with either Elliot or Claris, he says "Adeema" which means "Good-bye" in Dream Language and before Reala's fight, he says "Beadichinoa NiGHTS" which means "Let's go, NiGHTS". ** Many people hear Reala saying "There is no NiGHTS!" and assume this is what he said, but Yuji Naka himself confirmed Reala didn't say that but actually "Let's go, NiGHTS!" in Dream Language. ** Puffy also had a pre battle dialog which was likely in dream language in the Beta Version of the game, but it was removed in the final version of the game for unknown reasons. https://youtu.be/qNLW1fCWy9Y?t=257 ** Jackle's theme has whispers which could be saying something in Dream Language. ** Curiously, when Wizeman is defeated in the game, he says "No, NiGHTS!", but not in Dream Language. * Yuji Naka once said in an interview, that NiGHTS' jester-like appearance comes from the fact Jesters can look cheerful and happy but also evil and mean spirit, fitting with the world of the dreams thematic. * The idea for NiGHTS name, which all of it's letters but the "i" are written with caps, was imagined from the gem on NiGHTS' chest, it's also because Yuji Naka wanted to differ NiGHTS' name from the word "Nights". * Every major character, boss and minion from NiGHTS into dreams made an appearance or a cameo in Sonic Pinball Party. References External links ;Official ;Commercial ;Fan made Category:Games Category:Nights into Dreams Wiki Category:Community